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Joan Smith
Mrs. Elwood
English IV / Semantics
February 4, 2015
SSR 1 / Their Eyes Were Watching God / 1-60
In Zora Neale Hurston’s highly acclaimed novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, a
gorgeous mixed-race girl named Janie searches for love. Another beauty, actress Lana Turner,
learned that men can be selfish and manipulative. Janie’s disappointments lead her to the same
cynical view about men as demonstrated in Turner’s claim, “A gentleman is simply a patient
wolf” (BrainyQuotes.com).
Unfortunately, Janie’s Granny pushes her to marry a much older man after she catches
Janie flirting with a penniless teenage boy. Granny worried that Janie would succumb to the
wolf and end up pregnant. Such a girl would likely be deemed unmarriageable. After Janie’s
mother endured a brutal rape and subsequently gave birth to Janie, she ran off, leaving Granny to
raise her granddaughter. When Granny urges Janie to marry a financially sound farmer, she
implores, “Ah can’t die easy thinkin’ maybe de menfolks white or black is makin’ a spit cup outa
you” (20). Granny knows that men use women as a receptacle for bodily fluids and then treat
them with no greater regard than an inanimate object. Furthermore, Granny knows she will not
be around to raise another baby. Janie succumbs, marries Logan Killicks, and naively chooses to
“wait for love to begin” (22).
Not long after, Janie realizes her “first dream was dead”; marriage does not create love,
“so she became a woman” (25). Captivating and restless, Janie soon gains the attention of a
handsome passerby named Joe Starks. Janie reveals that her husband has gone to purchase a
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mule, so Janie can start plowing. Joe has better use for this exquisite beauty than dumping her
behind a plow. He courts her and, feeling her reluctance, states, “De day you puts yo’ hand in
mine, Ah wouldn’t let de sun go down on us single” (29). Starks’ gentlemanly pledge won
Janie’s allegiance, so she left with him the next morning and became his wife.
Starks becomes the founder of a town and soon amasses his own substantial wealth. In
preparation for a celebratory event, Joe “told her to dress up and stand in the store all that
evening” (41). Joe made certain she would be the most beautiful woman in attendance and he
intended to set her above the other women, not considering the loneliness that would ensue.
After several speeches were made, someone asks Janie to say a few words. Joe immediately
interjects that Janie “don’t know nothin’ ’bout no speech-makin’” (43). Graciously, Janie “made
her face laugh” (43). The obviously superficial joviality reveals Janie’s underlying angst about
being robbed of an opportunity she had not even yet considered. Joe should not have made the
decision for her. Janie begins to see what life will be like as a trophy wife.
Janie had great hopes for love. Although Killicks was as much of a gentleman as he
knew how to be, he treated his wife as a workhorse. He turned out to be the wolf who would
steal her youth and beauty in hard labor. Starks, a polished politician, behaved much more like a
gentleman, but his wolf-like desires turned Janie into a tool to feed his ambition. Although
Turner’s reference to a wolf refers purely to sexual conquests, the wolf metaphor also works for
Janie’s disappointments. Both Turner and Janie have learned that men manipulate women.
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Works Cited
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. 1937. New York: HarperCollins, 1990.
Print.
Turner, Lana. brainyquote.com. BrainyQuote. n.d. Web. 4 Feb. 2015 <http://
www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_men.html>.